Fault-tolerant clock synchronization for low-cost networked embedded systems

Abstract

Networked embedded systems using the smart device and fieldbus technologies are now found in many industrial fields including process automation and automobiles. However the discrepancy between a node's view of current time and the rest of the system can cause many difficulties in the design and implementation of a networked system. To provide a networked system with a global reference time, the problem of clock synchronization has been intensively studied over the decades. However, many of the existing solutions, which are mainly developed for large scale distributed computer systems, cannot be directly applied to embedded systems. This paper presents a fault-tolerant clock synchronization technique that can be used for a low-cost embedded system using a CAN bus. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated with a set of microcontrollers and DC motor-based actuators.